Where did all the raiders go?

CrashTest

I took a break early this year and came back recently to find most of the endgame raiders gone. The endgame community wasn't that large to begin with, but it's even worse now.

What happened?

ETA: PC NA

UntilValhalla13

A lot either accomplished what they wanted to, or just stopped playing because of how buggy the game is. PS4 NA feels like a ghost town.

JinMori

The game has some problems.

Czekoludek

There is a limit how much devs can spit at your face before you say stop, most raiders have enough of bad performance and stupid combat changes

Xerge

Craglorn is alive and well every EST evening into the morning. Mid afternoon is a bit dry tbh. I really don't understand your complaint as I am also a returning player. Just did a vHRC farm yesterday and joined a new raiding guild.

Drdeath20

How many times can you play the same 6 trials? Plus discord removed the necessity to crowd belkarth wayshrine. Long standing bugs, odd nerfs amongst many other things.

There is just not enough to do and there is little reason to do it over and over and over and over again etc...

Without discord its tough to get a good group to clear and well discord makes it feel like a 2nd job setting up appointments to do hard trial stuff. ZoS needs to have a better grouping system with actual role standards.

More than anything i want to que up and get into doing stuff using a que that i have semi faith in that locks out harder content until certain standards are met. I want to do this in game so i dont have to use an APP to make an appointment with some weirdo who posts 20 weird anime fart *** memes a day.

lolo_01b16_ESO

Well, some are still there, but ZOS is trying their best to make us stop raiding.
At the beginning of this week our raid lead cancelled all raids for the next two weeks due to the bugs they introduced with the latest patch. Yesterday I tried to run dsa with some friends as a replacement for the raid, but we didn't manage to complete it. After each of us had a crash to desktop more than 5 times (despite having a good pc, up to date drivers, no addons enabled and a fast and stable internet connection) we gave up.

Tsar_Gekkou

I don't know how it is on PC, but on Xbox, at lot of endgame people don't pug anymore because too many runs were ruined by bad people who joined and proceeded to screw up over and over. A lot of them just run with their own friend groups and don't join pug runs anymore.

Pevey

Natural attrition of the previous end-gamers, and very few in the pipeline who want to bother.

Nerf after nerf after nerf to optimized group play.

The iron atronach masks this because everyone can post higher parses than they used to. But apples to apples, end game damage output is down.

They did it again this patch. They added vuln to the dummy, so all else being equal parses will be higher than last. This masks the nerfs so that most people don’t realize their damage output has actually gone down.

Well-played, Zos. Except look at the health of your end-game PVE community. It sucks.

Katheriah

They push buggy DLC's to prod, which makes people like the game a little bit less.

Apox

to a game that works.

CrashTest

Xerge wrote: »

Craglorn is alive and well every EST evening into the morning. Mid afternoon is a bit dry tbh. I really don't understand your complaint as I am also a returning player. Just did a vHRC farm yesterday and joined a new raiding guild.

I'm not complaining. I'm asking.

Also, I'm not talking about Craglorn pugs. I mean organized grouping that actually finishes harder stuff, not vet Crag trials.

I'm in half a dozen or so trial discords. Once busy trial guilds are now slow. There are way fewer scheduled runs, and the runs that are scheduled often have trouble filling, so they're canceled. LFG in them rarely fill either. And my friends list is inactive.

I've also noticed the number of trial guilds advertising has dropped. It's mostly RP and social now.

Kwoung

I always wondered about trial guilds actually, like what is the long term draw since there is such a limited number of trials, and how many people really care about the leaderboards? Your post pretty much answers my question, they don't tend to last once folks have gotten what they want out of them, be it experience, achievements or whatnot I guess. Sort of like housing guilds, once you are into housing, there is good chance you are close to being done with the game.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

I used to raid up to 4 times a week (end game/achievements/hardmodes/no deaths), but around just after Summerset the community started to die down due to boredom, bugs and a lack of accomplished players to join existing teams (my experience)

It boiled down to the fact that people without raid guilds and experience weren't up to par and couldn't fill the void of those who had already left. I can even go back so far to Craglorn and VMOL which was already very choppy when it came out and many people just got up and left after that.

In my opinion these underlying facts killed HL PVE (in a sense):

- Too bigger divide between players
- Too much emphasis on mediocre quests/overland zones
- Too much bugged content (non resolved or resolved too late)

And it may sound funny, but it's true. I only login in the game at the moment for one casual raid a week and two other times for actual Roleplaying in a Roleplay guild...I guess you're always served best by yourself

Contaminate

Each patch makes the game that much more unplayable

This one has you dropping through the floor sometimes into a blank hellscape, also makes your lightattacks lag or not go off, the Major defensive buffs got huge nerfs, Rapids got broken, some skills randomly unmorph and revert to zero exp base ability, this issue also will sit for at least another week because ZOS doesn’t care enough to fix it immediately even when it’s deleting the skill point used to morph it.

And that’s just this one patch.

Vaoh

UntilValhalla13 wrote: »

A lot either accomplished what they wanted to, or just stopped playing because of how buggy the game is. PS4 NA feels like a ghost town.

My last goal for raiding was accomplished when I got DB, so I’m another example of this. Just letting you know ahead of time how PS4 NA will feel even more dead next patch.

Over the course of Greymoor and Stonethorn, two groups got Dawnbringer, and one group got Godslayer just a few days ago. Another group is on the brink of getting Godslayer with 29min 34 vital but may be out of luck since console gets Markarth in two more days. Hopefully they don’t quit too.

In terms of IR/GH/TTT trifecta titles, pretty much everyone who wants them has already got them, though IR/GH runs in particular will always be pushed by some group out there due to faster mini-trial duration, meaning less raid time wasted from a crash/bluescreen.

Vevvev

Everything everyone has just said plus the fact some are doing the new DLC. Of course it's been a few days and most of them have probably gotten what they wanted.... If anything. I know the new mythical items are not exactly the best to take into Trials, especially the Ring of the Pale Order.

Drdeath20

Take your pick:

The game is old and blah now. Half a dozen trials and no good in game way to group for them. Power creep came and went and now were on the downside of the bell curve. Bugs! Glitches! And just an overall unfinished product. People have accomplished everything they set out to do. New players are scared off by the gitguds soo the pipeline is drying up. Discord (while handy) makes the game feel like a 2nd job. Not enough stuff to do and no good reason to keep doing it. At some point players realize that most "new" things in this game are just reskinned same old.

omnidoh

Drdeath20 wrote: »

Take your pick:

The game is old and blah now. Half a dozen trials and no good in game way to group for them. Power creep came and went and now were on the downside of the bell curve. Bugs! Glitches! And just an overall unfinished product. People have accomplished everything they set out to do. New players are scared off by the gitguds soo the pipeline is drying up. Discord (while handy) makes the game feel like a 2nd job. Not enough stuff to do and no good reason to keep doing it. At some point players realize that most "new" things in this game are just reskinned same old.

#Truth.

ebix_

you can ask the same question in pvp .
in every patch note for every one good change ,they made two bad one , for every bug they fixed they added 2 new one.
in both pvp and pve skill gap is high and their solution was always to raise floor and lower the ceiling , current proc meta for example , which is a disrespect to the group of players who put their time in this game to became good at it so ofc veterans gonna leave.

WrathOfInnos

Right now most trial groups are just canceling runs until (hopefully) the crashes and bugs are fixed on the 16th. It does seem like the community is getting smaller on PC/NA, hopefully this will reverse when there’s some stability.

rrimöykk

CrashTest wrote: »

I took a break early this year and came back recently to find most of the endgame raiders gone. The endgame community wasn't that large to begin with, but it's even worse now.

What happened?

PS4EU had many amazing end game guilds who did really well. Now after Greymoor and it's fantastic new ideas we have like 6 left? There's some prog groups going but mostly just rp, housing and questing ppl.

Oh yes, pvp is empty too.

rrimöykk

I started this game during the covid break and lockdown 6 months ago. I have now 3 max cp characters, done all vet dungeons on hm and got all achievements from those, done all trials on vet and only missing CR hm.

This tells how stupidly easy this game is. Most likely would have done vCR+3 too already if there were enough players who are interested of end game. Sadly there aren't.

It is nerfed to oblivion and there aren't enough new content with proper loot (lol Kyne's). Instead of making new trials, they buff the oldest sets. Only in ESO. Makes no sense and makes no progress.

stevenyaub16_ESO

The performance was an issue but what really made me stop was the constant patches that change the way classes played. I'm now sick of all this reworking and retired to do story/small scale content only.

Synnastix

PS4 feels pretty empty after the last Greymoor event, though I can’t say too much because I’ve been elsewhere too. New consoles drop next week and once games for those start flowing I suspect it’ll drop even more. IMO the game needs a major refresh to get new players interested or keep old players engaged. My guild roster feels like a revolving door with so many people leaving or taking extended breaks from the game. Maybe Markarth will bring some people back for a couple weeks but the next chapter needs to be a big deal or console will continue to decline.

JTD

Drdeath20 wrote: »

Take your pick:
Not enough stuff to do and no good reason to keep doing it. At some point players realize that most "new" things in this game are just reskinned same old.

This...

From what I see in a multitude of discords is when people get their 'achievement/completion' it just stops, no reason to go back again. While i do not like the system other mmo's have there is something to say for having to complete the harder content to get the relevant gear (once a week). Instead of banging out (insert trial name) 5/6 times in a row on the same day.

Since gear is relatively unimportant in this game and it surely isn't hard to get why WOULD you run a buggy mess of a trial?

ATM i'm running twice a week with a group of friends where the skill level, both in game sense and mechanical, is very diverse but we enjoy each others company. I would not run with some of my previous achievement groups for 'fun'.

starkerealm

rrimöykk wrote: »

CrashTest wrote: »

I took a break early this year and came back recently to find most of the endgame raiders gone. The endgame community wasn't that large to begin with, but it's even worse now.

What happened?

PS4EU had many amazing end game guilds who did really well. Now after Greymoor and it's fantastic new ideas we have like 6 left? There's some prog groups going but mostly just rp, housing and questing ppl.

Oh yes, pvp is empty too.

Most of the PS4NA players I know migrated to PCNA last year because of performance issues. Ever since Wrobel left, the game's been getting sweeping balance changes with each patch, which make it really tedious to keep up with everything that's been altered, and means that a lot of players have to completely relearn how to play their characters every three months. Which, yeah, that's taken a toll on people.

Also, this year's been buggy ever since they started working remotely. Nothing to blame the team for there, but it's been pretty clear that the game is suffering to make the release schedule.

Suna_Ye_Sunnabe

Some of us are tired of the withering disrespect from the company. The meta swinging around like Tarzan in a waterspout gets old after a few years.

Hallothiel

PS4EU. Know quite a few trial guilds still working through stuff. And our nominally social guild now has a vMOL prog group, as we also run a training group to get newer players used to trials. Have decent numbers. Maybe people aren’t pugging or advertising guilds?

Also good numbers in pvp. Sometimes I wonder if playing the same game as some posters on here.....

LukosCreyden

@Hallothiel
Also PS4EU. I've noticed that our server always seems to chug along at a fairly steady pace, regardless of what is going on with the game. I've also noticed that less PS4EU players visit places like the forums and reddit, so that may also be a factor.

Aznarb

Was used to run a lot of raid/hm/trifecta, but after a break I didn't have fun anymore doing it running each time the same couple of set, playing "this meta class" to support the group instead of the one I love, gathering success on class I don't care about, more and more boring to me.

Now, since 3-4 month I've switch in a casual guild with many low skill / beginner and I teach them and made fun themed build, I really enjoyed the game way more this way now.
So yeah I can't do the most challenging content anymore, but that not really a problem, their is so much more to do.

Guess we all change when time pass.